A n Exposition of Matthew 28:1-10, by the late Dr. Joseph Parker, former pastor of the Gity Temple, London. Taken from Parker’s Peoples’ Bible
N the end of the Sabbath.” No! In the end of the Jewish Sabbath mayhap, but not in the end of the Sabbath. Literally in the end of “Sabbaths,” as if they had a ll, come to a point of termination. The
more than half over way down in the eastern lands—in the far-away western places, men are just beginning to rise now, and when we have concluded our service they will begin to sing “This is the day the Lord hath made.” In the highest sense that can chal lenge the imagination' and satisfy all the religious vision that is in us, Chris tianity is a continual dawning. When Christ comes the light comes; when Christ shines upon the life the darkness flees away; when the mind gets its first true conception of Christ, it is as if a shaft of light were shot from a great firmament of gloom, and as if all heaven shone. It began in the beginning. God created the heavens that dawn every day. Believe me, we live in beginnings. There is a joyousness about the dawn and the beginning, the stirring tune, the hour of activity, when every energy leaps to the front, and every power says, “Baptize me for thy service, and may I be crowned as a blessing in the world’s commonwealth.” “As it began to dawn towaras the first day.” That also is just what it did! Now the primacy of time is cov-. ered with the higher primacy of grace. The “first day” it had always been since time was broken up into weeks and months and years. For many a long century it had been the first day of the week as it were by nativity—but now it is born again. It was sown in cor ruption, it is raised in incorruption; it was sown a little glint of time, it rises big with eternal splendor. So may we be born again. You áre first
Sabbath is only about to begin; there are .no endings in God’s blessings— what we call the end is only the little rest which the blessing takes, to come up again in the fuller bloom and tend erer color and larger fruitfulness. Why have you this word “end” in your speech as Christians? There is an end to nothing but sin. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” No beauty is lost, no light, no speech of tenderness, no comfort of benediction, no inspiration of truth. The Sabbath can never end: man would take it back again if it were to be withdrawn. Forms may undergo changes, but the sabbatic spirit, the genius of rest, the elder brother of the days, the queen of the week, the shining star amid all the galaxy of time—the world would not willingly let die, the great religious heart of man can never allow to expire. “As it began to dawn.” Yes, that is just what it did. That is the very poetry of the occasion; the word writ ten with apparent accident is the very expression of heaven. It began to dawn,—a new tender light .shot up in the eastern sky, the orient trembled with a new presence, and glowed as with an infinite surprise. Christianity is always dawning: The Sabbath dawns over all the world; the Sabbath day is
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker